Mary Barnard Ray Receives AALS Section Award

Mary Barnard Ray, who recently retired as legal writing specialist at UW Law School, has received an AALS section award for "significant lifetime contribution to the field of legal writing, reasoning and research."

In announcing the award, AALS said, "Mary Barnard Ray has been a pioneer and major proponent of Advanced Legal Writing courses. She co-authored one of the first textbooks that went Beyond the Basics. She also co-authored the desktop reference Getting it Right and Getting it Written as well as The Basics of Legal Writing. She is a frequent presenter at the Legal Writing Institute and Association of Legal Writing Directors conferences.

Members of both the LWI and ALWD listserves know of Mary’s unfailingly generous response to requests for help, which often includes sharing her numerous handouts, exercises, and teaching insights. Her early videotape, "Texts, Sighs, and Videotape" is still the quintessential training tool for conducting challenging student conferences. She has been a mentor to legal writing teachers as well as writing specialists and program directors. She has served as a board member of ALWD. After 33 years in the field of legal writing, Mary Ray recently retired from the University of Wisconsin."

Awards will be presented at the AALS meeting in Washington, D.C. in January 2012.